The making of a serious game : perspectives from stakeholders

Abstract

This paper treats serious, educational, and learning games as games that aim to teach content like how vaccines work or skills like early reading. This paper found that at the core of the process of making serious games sits participatory design, where the game development team makes decisions together with clients, partners, and experts to address the purpose of the game, tackle a plethora of challenges, and balance learning and fun. Various stakeholders from Finland participated in five semi-structured interviews and the findings were examined through qualitative content analysis. This paper is a good starting point for educators and game developers who are interested in learning how the process of making a serious game goes and what roles various stakeholders have in this process. This paper provides further evidence that educational experts, other subject matter experts and game designers should work together throughout the whole lifecycle of a serious game, and not just in the conception phase.